Burning of Foxworth Hall
by Erica Christian
Summary: What I think really happened that night in December 1972 when Foxworth Hall went up in flames.


Note: The characters do not belong to me. This is a fan fiction for Petals on the Wind by V.C. Andrews. By the way, the line "I hope all the bedbugs bite" is from the book.

I had been thinking about Cathy all night, about what she said to me just before she hung up the phone. I know that it was me who snapped at her first, who told her I didn't want anything to do with her until Bart Winslow was out of her life. But it still hurt to hear those words from her.

_I hope all the bedbugs bite_!

I started to laugh uncontrollably. In a way, it was completely ridiculous. As if she thought she was being so clever, throwing that old childish, reassuring line of ours back in my face. And all because, unlike her, I could live happily without revenge. I knew that revenge didn't make you whole. But she could never accept it when she knew I was right. She was a little bitch is what she was and, sometimes, I truly hated her. I knew everything there was to know about her and there was so much there to hate. Yet, in the end, the things that made me love her stuck out the most, overriding all others.

A thin layer of water threatened to rupture behind my closed eyelids. My hand was on the phone, ready to call her back, to tell her I would do anything she asked, anything to make her happy. And if destroying our mother made her happy, so be it. A part of me still loved my mother. But I loved my Cathy more. I think I always had. Maybe even since I was a child I knew that Cathy was my second shot at true love, my second and final shot to get it right.

In the end, I didn't call her. Instead, I got a phone call from the hospital. Paul had had a heart attack. He could just barely talk, yet he wanted my sister and me by his side.

I arrived at the hospital late at night, just before visiting hours ended. I pulled up a chair and sat there, talking to Paul. I know that for years, I had felt so much resentment toward him. If it hadn't been for him, I would think…and then remind myself that it wasn't his fault that my sister was a selfish brat who didn't know what the hell it was she wanted, or more to the point, who it was she wanted. If it hadn't been for Paul, there still would have been Julian.

I thought back to that conversation I'd had with my asshole brother-in-law by his hospital bed three years before. I had been sitting in a chair by his side, much like I was sitting by Paul's side now. The doctors hadn't wanted me to go in at first but when I told them that he was my brother-in-law, and that his wife-my sister-had begged me to check in on him (Cathy really was beside herself after all that bastard had said to her), they agreed that a few minutes wouldn't hurt. I don't know if the fact that I told them I was a medical student helped at all. It was something I said a lot because I still couldn't get over the fact that, in this one regard, all my dreams were coming true.

"My sister really loves you," I told him. "I don't know what she sees in a little shit like you, but she really does love you."

In the past, he never would say anything to me unless it involved screaming and cursing too. But now he just chuckled lightly. "I bet that just about kills you."

I flushed. "Yeah," I said. Cathy had told me that Julian knew about us. Well, he didn't know the whole truth, but he suspected something. I knew my love for her was wrong, yet I had never felt love that strong and…and…pure. Yes, pure. Not ever. Not in my life. "It sure as hell does piss me off, _Jule_."

"Don't worry, the bitch is all yours," he said.

"You're unbelievable," I told him. "Here you've made her life a living hell for four years. You never allowed her to even look at another man. You tried to destroy the love she had for her family because you were too selfish to even think that maybe she wasn't just a piece of furniture for you to move around any way you wanted."

"Look who's talking."

"You ass! I love my sister. Do you even know what love is, you twisted little shit?"

"I know a little about your kind of love," he said. "It's hell, you know. To understand that the object of your undying affection just couldn't give a damn about you one way or another. Yeah, I know what it's like. You give your soul to someone and, at the end of the day, once they've abused and used you, screwed you in every possible way, and finally drained you of every last drop of lifeblood-after they turn you into _them_-they just leave you behind and find new flesh to rip into. My father was like that. You remind me a little of him, actually." He looked over at me, tears streaming down his face. "She doesn't really love you, Chris. She never really loved you. You say all the time that it's me who's hurt her so bad but I was only ever trying to protect her from vampires like you."

What he said left me so cold. But more than that, it pissed me off. How dare he even try to suggest that Cathy needed protecting from me? I stood. "You know what? I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're crippled and that you'll never dance again because the truth is, you were never anything but mediocre in the first place. Maybe now, with no ballet world to hide behind, you'll be forced to face just what a true monster you are. Maybe it will eat at you for the rest of your life, and then I'll be able to think back on you and not just want to rip that black heart of yours right out of your body. Because I'll know you've finally had enough of what you truly deserve. And maybe not even then. I hope you die. I hope you rot in hell for what you've done to us all."

I left without even looking back at him. The doctors had heard the yelling and told me it was time for me to leave. I was ready to go anyway.

But, that night, as I was holding my sister in the next room over, I kept thinking about him. It would be horrible if he pulled through. I couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like if, for some reason or another, he managed to recover. The doctors hadn't been optimistic but they had allowed for a little hope-hope my sister still clung to even as she clung to me. Hope that could destroy her if it ever snaked itself up into reality.

"I love him so much, Chris," she sobbed into my shoulder. "I didn't think I could ever feel anything like this for another person after you-" And then she was lost for words, her tears soaking my shirt and sliding down to pool in the hollow of my throat.

"Shh," I said. And kissed her briefly on the mouth, my own lips tight. "Shh, sweetheart, it's going to be OK."

I waited till she was asleep before I got up and snuck back into his room. The nurse was there, but I could see that she'd fallen asleep herself. In her lap was a small pair of scissors. It was almost like God was telling me what to do.

I thought about this as I looked down at Paul, and I realized how easy it would be to kill him. So easy to smother him now with that pillow where he rested his head.

But I knew that even with Paul dead, Cathy would find another. In fact, there was Bartholomew Winslow right now, devouring the same body I ached inside to treat only with love and tenderness. I knew he was little more than my sister's revenge. I knew there was no way she could really love him. Soon enough, she'd be back home with Paul, ready to eagerly take up the role of wife that she'd casually tossed aside only months before.

Man, how I hated that conniving little whore.

I thought back to what she'd told me the other day. "I'm pregnant, Chris. I can't believe I actually did it." She laughed, high on the new life growing inside her. High on the thrill of sticking it to our mother where she knew it would hurt the most. "And you know what? I really think Bart might even ask to marry me, once he realizes what a cockroach his hag of a wife really is. Can you believe that?"

"Yeah, I can believe that," I said in a tight voice. "What man can resist you, my lady Cath-er-ine?"

I didn't really believe she was serious. I didn't believe she could possibly love a brute like Bart. But then he had been the first man-other than me, of course-that she'd ever kissed. I think he might well have been my precious little sister's first crush. I tried not to think about it.

"Chris," Paul said, in a hoarse, tired voice. He turned to look at me. He reached over to touch my hand. "Thank you for coming, Chris. I know I can count on you."

What he said made me want to cry. I knew that he looked at me and saw only our beautiful Catherine's absence.

Once I'd thought that I could actually love him. I'd thought that maybe I could look up to him seeing as how he had been so kind to us. Seeing as how he was a doctor himself and the kind of man I wanted to be. Sometimes I felt like the two of us were the ones who were married since I was the one who kept coming back to him to pay him all the attention that Cathy was too fickle to truly give to anyone but herself.

He reached up to touch my cheek and I looked away so that he wouldn't see the embarrassment on my face.

"You're exactly how I always imagined my son would have been." His arm dropped. "I never told you this, but I'm very proud of you."

Words that once would have made me feel on top of the world now just made me feel as though I were the worst scum on earth. I couldn't wish this man dead. He had done so much for us.

Even when he said, "Do you think you could talk to Cathy for me? I'd really like to see her. It doesn't have to be right away. Just sometime soon," I could only nod, and say, "Yes, sir." I reached over and squeezed his hand. "You're going to be OK, aren't you?"

He laughed low. "Oh, I think so. I feel like I've still got a good forty years in me before I give up this old life for good. That's what your sister has done for me-angel or whore that she is."

We both laughed at that.

I was thinking about Paul as I walked across the parking lot to my car. I was thinking that he truly deserved Cathy, and whatever good it was she happened to have in her. Yes, my sister was as virginal as the Virgin Mary when it came to her favors of kindness.

But maybe she was good for him.

At least, Paul was a good man who had done so much for us. At least if she was back home with Paul, I would get to see her from time to time. I could even live in the same house. I really didn't think that she loved this Bart Winslow. But still, I couldn't get her words out of my mind.

_I'm pregnant, Chris_. Laughter. _I think he'll even marry me._

Not if I had anything to say about it.

Anger flared inside of me. Ever since I was a child-as far back as I could possibly remember-I'd been prone to internal rages, stemming from all the injustice I was forced to swallow. I knew, even as a small child, that as much as my mother loved me, I was always going to be second place in her heart. I was not my father and could never be him. When I was a kid, I didn't fully understand what it was that he gave her which I could not, but as I got older, it became clear to me. It was because he was an adult and because he could love her in a way that I-as a child, her child-could not. Every time she held me, or stroked my hair, or kissed me, I would feel so loved at first, but after she was gone, I'd feel nothing but loneliness. I'd try to make her stay in bed with me, crying the moment she started to get up.

Of course it had always occurred to me how much my sister looked like my mother. Starting from the age of about 8 or 9, I'd had a bit of a crush on them both. But it didn't take me long to realize that my sister Cathy was more on my level. And so I had done everything to earn her love and admiration. I only teased her because I wanted her to pay attention to me. I wanted her to look up to me. To adore me. To love me as much as my mother did, only more. Unlike my mother, Cathy was more my equal. Even when I teased her, I knew this. I would always be there for her. I was her protective older brother. But I was also her Christopher Doll, the way my father was my mother's. I don't think I fully understood that at the time. Now I did.

Still, I never really did give up on my mother. I found it so hard to forget that, really, she was my first love. And Cathy, I knew, would be my last. I couldn't stand the thought of Bart Sr. having had both of them. He didn't love either one of them as I did. He never could. How could I make Cathy see that we really were meant for each other? That no one else would care about her as much as I did?

Without thinking, I found myself driving to the one place I knew Cathy would be on this night of all nights. I prayed to God that I would get there in time, that this night would not be as much of a lonely failure as all my previous nights had been.

It was just as I had remembered it. Foxworth Hall. I can't even begin to count how many times this place had haunted my dreams. I never wanted to admit it because I had to be the optimistic one. The strong one. The one who helped us all get on with our lives and leave this awful nightmare behind. Of course, I never could get over it myself. My suffocating love for Cathy was only one example of that, and, of course, I'd always loved Cathy anyway. She said all the time that if it weren't for the attic, I would have never loved her, but that was not true. It might have been true for her-and trust her to find any excuse not to be with me-but it wasn't in my case. I had always loved her. All the attic had done was made it impossible for me to deny it. After the attic, I no longer had anything to lose. I figured I might as well have the one person who had always made me feel happy. No other girl had ever been enough for me before, and now I was sure that no girl ever would be.

Since I was already there, I figured I might as well go back up to that attic room. I might as well confront it once and for all, since I knew the image of it-burned into my mind-would never let me rest. It haunted my days and my nights. Every time I saw an attic, I would begin to panic and to sweat. I would feel my heart start to race. Every time I was in a room with twin beds, I would start to get all sick inside. Sometimes I would have to just get away so that I could cry in private. College had been hell for this very reason. How could I possibly even imagine moving on when every time I closed my door each night, I began to feel as trapped as I used to feel when it was just Cathy, the twins and me?

The room had not changed one bit. Everything was just as we'd left it. The painting of hell was still over the bed. The dollhouse was still there-empty. The family had long since departed.

Never had I felt so hopeless, even when I was actually locked in here. Never had it occurred to me just how lonely this place really was. I began to weep.

_Oh, Cathy, _I thought. _I'm sorry. So sorry. Heaven help me for wanting to remain locked away in this hellhole with you._

I finally understood why it was that she could never stand the thought of making love to me. Every time I kissed her, and tried to draw her into my room, it brought her back to this room. And it wasn't just that this had been the place where our mother had betrayed us, where our grandmother had emotionally abused us and whipped us, where our bodies had withered away and where our baby brother had died. It was that, but it wasn't just that. This place wasn't just an attic where horrible things could happen to you and nobody cared to sooth your pain but your sister. It was purgatory on Earth. It was a place where, if you didn't find a way to escape yourself, you could remain locked away for good, leaving you to only watch as everyone you ever loved moved on, made lives for themselves, left you dying behind.

I hated this place because it was the place I was still trapped in, even though I'd tried to flee it so many years before. It was lost childhood, the angst of a wasted adolescence. Cathy was trying to move on. And I just kept trying to pull her back.

Who would want to make love to this? Who would want to have this place find its way inside them?

No more…

I didn't know how to begin filling up the hole inside of me, but I could do something about the black hole I was standing in right now. And maybe that was the first step to reclaiming the life I had willingly given up. No point blaming Momma. No. Now it was all on me. I had to start taking some responsibility for that which I could control.

I almost didn't feel like any of this was real as I took the matches in my hand. It just seemed so natural. Burn the place to the ground. Destroy it, as it had destroyed a part of me. The part of me that may have once yearned for a happy life, a better life. That optimism Cathy always talked about. I didn't have any dreams anymore except the bad kind.

I watched as the stairs leading to the attic burned first. I watched as the fire spread, and then I turned to leave the room.

_I've got to find Cathy_, I thought. _We've got to get out of here!_


End file.
